Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 12:41:52 -0800 (PST)
From: K. S.
Subject: Sullivan's Grill Part Four
[I know, its been forever. I'll try to do better.]
FROM CHAPTER THREE:
As I moved to the outside door, I glanced back at the bar, to see Glenn
behind it, his head bowed deep in conversation with Danielle. Glenn was
shaking his head from side to side in denial of something, but I couldn't
hear what they were saying. `And, didn't want to know,' I thought to
myself, as I pushed open the door and walked outside into the cold. `This
better not take long', I thought, as I pulled my coat closer around my
body.
CHAPTER FOUR
Outside, I stood in the parking lot, trying to look like I wasn't
waiting for someone. The doors were all glass at the front, and if I was
going to get stood up by Glenn, I didn't want people in the bar to see
it happen. Fortunately, there were even less cars in the parking lot now
than when I had entered earlier, so there was no one on the outside to
comment on my loitering near the doorway.
It's an usual college town I live in -- small, very rural, and with a
severe town-and-gown problem. The University was definitely the biggest
asset to the city, but the city leadership -- and a good majority of the
citizens -- seemed to really resent that. About the only quasi-university
like environment was the one in which I now stood -- an area between the
edge of campus and the city's aging downtown. A number of enterprising
real estate developers had transformed the area into something
approaching coolness: the rental units were all remarkably dense, but
were scattered with courtyards and small pocket parks and actually, all
the buildings had a great deal of architectural flare. It was the place
you lived if you wanted to imagine that you lived in a college town, and
didn't want to be confronted with the reality that, in fact, you
didn't. In truth, most of the time, I very seldom ventured very far away
from the area.
That being said, even this small patch of sanity in an otherwise
strangely repressed town was incredibly dead, due to the break. Looking
around me, I could see almost no cars parked on the street, and all the
street cafes were obviously closed. None of the nearby apartments seemed
to even have their lights on -- most of the students had packed up their
bags and headed to their various hometowns days earlier. Standing on the
side of the dimly lit street, glancing first one way and then the other,
I saw no signs of life in either direction. And, it was getting cold.
`Two minutes,' I thought to myself, as I began to wonder why I was
standing here, shivering.
I heard the music get louder behind me, and glanced around over my
shoulder to see if someone had opened the door to Sullivan's. Glenn,
coming through the double doors, saw me look, and smiled. I let out what
I hoped was not an obvious sigh of relief.
"I'm sorry," he started. "I had to convince Danielle that I was really
just going for a walk."
"She didn't believe you?" Like I didn't already know the answer to that
one, but I had to ask.
"No, not really. She could see you standing out here, so I think she was
curious about when you and I ever hung out. She's....uh....sorta'
territorial. And, its not just you, really. She's like this with all my
friends."
"Huh. I'd probably find that a bit annoying," I said with a bit of
frankness that I immediately regretted.
"You think I don't? It's just easier, you know.....to kinda' go with
the flow with her. I mean, I do like her and all and we're always seeing
each other, here and at parties and stuff, and so I don't really want to
get her too angry." Glenn looked down at the street, and then back up to
me, almost like he was looking for my approval. He smiled faintly. "I
might need her to cover my bar shift sometime....", he joked.
"It's ok....I mean, sure, I understand. I some friends that sometimes do
a very similar thing, and I let them get away with it, too. So, its
cool." I heard myself talking, and was momentarily surprised at what I
was saying. My first reaction is to comfort and mollify people, I
suppose, and that instinct was kicking into overdrive around Glenn. "So
where do you want to walk to?", I asked, intending to bypass this entire
train of conversation.
"How about your house?"
"Huh?"
"Your house. Don't you live there?" Glenn pointed down a side street
toward the direction of my house. "Is that ok?"
Now my head was spinning a little bit, and not from the boilermakers. I
hadn't realized that Glenn knew where I lived, although I supposed he
knew that I lived somewhere close.
"Is that ok? We can go somewhere else if that's a problem?" Glenn
repeated his question with a concerned expression on his face.
"No, no, that's fine. I just didn't know that you knew where I lived,
that's all. Sure, we can go back to my place. But, didn't you want to
walk around for a while?"
"Man, its too cold to walk around, I wanna' set somewhere warm. Besides,
I see you all the time up here, but I've never been to your place. I
want to check it out."
With that, the night made another big flip-flop in my brain. First, it
was potentially bad. Then good. Then kinda' weird. Then good again. Now,
definitely back into the weird-but-possibly good category. We started
walking up the street and over, and across the parking lot west toward my
house, which was just barely hidden behind some of the other apartment
buildings nearby. I'd gotten lucky with my house-- there were only a few
of them in this area, and I had one of them, and it was only minutes away
from Sullivan's. Thoughts, racing through my head kept distracting me,
but luckily Glenn wasn't saying much, but just keeping time beside me as
we walked through the neighborhood. `Did I make up the bed?' `What
shape was the rest of the house in' `WE'RE GOING TO MY HOUSE!', I
kept wondering to myself as we walked.
"Do you like living over here? I wish I had an apartment somewhere
nearby....", Glenn said suddenly, breaking the silence.
I looked over at him, but he had his head down, staring at the street as
he walked. `Small talk', I decided to myself. `Uncomfortable silences
must bother him too.'
"Yep. It's the only place in town to live. Convenient to all the bars
and campus and the restaurants and stuff. You don't ever really have to
drive anywhere, unless you want. And, of course, there's no chance of
ever getting a DUI.", I said, chuckling out loud.
"That's good -- there's been a few times when you've left the bar that
I've been really worried about you, but you made it home ok......" Glenn
trailed off as he realized what he had said.
"How do you know I always make it home ok?" I asked, and suddenly,
dreaded the answer I thought I was going to get.
"Uh, well, you were back in the next night, so nothing bad must have
happened, right?" Glenn, said, in a rush, after a short pause.
"Yeah....", I said slowly, "that's true....."
"Well, ok then," Glenn sighed, almost in relief. "It's just, you know,
we try to watch out for our regulars, you know, the ones we like....."
Again, his voice trailed off.
Our walk had taken us down the street from Sullivan's, and through a
back parking lot and onto a nearby, dimly-lit street. Like the other
streets in the neighborhood, this one was also deserted, although it was
normally filled with cars along the street and foot-traffic until all
hours of the night. The short-cut through the parking lot had taken us
directly to the front of my house, and I quickly moved to the front door,
and started fumbling for my keys.
"This is your first time to my place, I guess.....", making conversation
as I unlocked both locks on the front door, opened the door and turned
off the suddenly beeping alarm panel. "Come on in -- the place is kinda'
a wreck, so sorry about that....."
Glenn followed me inside, and started taking off his jacket -- the heat
was up fairly high inside, so we were both warming up pretty quick. Out
of the corner of my eye, as I was hanging up our coats, I could see him
glancing around, and checking things out.
"This is nice. I mean, this is a really cool place......"
"Thanks. I like it. And, its convenient to most everything around, so
that's pretty cool. Do you want something to drink? And sit down, or
look around, if you want....." I made my way to the bar, and started
pulling glasses down off shelves.
"Uh, do you have....what do you have?" Glenn, started, as he moved over
near me at the bar.
"Whatever you like, really.....more boilermakers? Or something else? Make
whatever you like, you know, you're the professional." I smiled over at
Glenn, still staring at my bar.
"Do you realize that all these liquor bottles are in the exact same order
as they are at the back bar at Sullivan's?", Glenn asked, with a really
weird look on his face.
"Of course. That's why I put them in that order. I spend so much time
watching all of you make drinks, that sometimes I'll come back here and
make the ones that I haven't tried before. So, I try to make sure I have
all the same basics that ya'll have." I was a little nervous about this
conversation, as the entire night seemed to be centered on my
obviously-growing alcoholism. "Beer is under the bar, in the coolers.
Everything else is.....well....where you would expect it to be. But,
I'll make you something, if you want, since you get to make me drinks
all the time." I was looking at Glenn during this entire conversation,
but so far, his eyes hadn't left the liquor cabinet.
"Uh, how about just whatever you're having. The boilermakers were
good.....I don't mind more of those. And, uh, now we won't have
Danielle to watch how many we drink," Glenn added somewhat nervously.
"Ok. Two boilermakers coming up," I said, also with a nervous laugh.
"Don't forget that you've got to call her in a little while, about
movies or whatever," I added, mentally kicking myself for mentioning it.
"Nope. I got out of that. I told her I was going to be busy, that
something had come up."
"Oh." I said, not sure how to respond. `Shorter is less likely to get me
into trouble', I thought to myself, as I finished pouring beer into two
chilled mugs, and then topping them off with shots of whisky. "Here you
go," handing Glenn his drink and a bevnap. "Have a seat."
"Can I look around first?" Glenn asked, sipping his drink, and smiling at
me. "I haven't seen everything yet."
"Sure." I started toward the entertainment center, as Glenn started
poking his head into the adjoining dining room and kitchen. "What kind of
music do you want to listen to?" I yelled into the side of the house,
where Glenn had obviously found the laundry room, the kitchen, and the
doors to the outside courtyard.
"Anything is fine....whatever you listen to. Is this courtyard all
yours?" Glenn yelled back, as I hit the random play on the cd changer and
played with the volume controls. Grabbing the stereo remote, and my
drink, I walked to the back of the living room, and drew back all the
curtains on the patio doors there. My house was in a type of an `L'
shape, with the courtyard surrounded on two sides by the house and by a
fence on the other two. The annuals planted outside in the english-style
garden, normally very nice in the spring, summer and fall, had finally
begun to die due to the cold weather. Noticing Glen standing outside the
doors leading from the hallway off the kitchen, I walked out the living
room doors to join him, both of us with our drinks in hand.
"It normally looks a bit better out here, but the cold is beginning to
kill a lot of stuff. It looks a lot better in the other parts of the
year, especially when the crepe myrtles bloom." I stood beside Glenn,
slowly sipping my drink.
"I think its great -- I never knew this was back here `cause you can't
see it from the front....." Glenn started, and then trailed off.
`Huh.', I thought to myself. "Have you been by here before?", I asked,
keeping my voice very light and casual.
"Uh....well, not really." There was a long pause. "Well maybe sorta'."
"Huh?", I thought again, this time saying the word aloud.
"Well....uh.....sometimes, if you have a lot of beer at Sullivan's, and
there's another bartender there on duty, sometimes.....uh......we'll
just kinda' follow you to make sure you get home ok. Its really no big
deal....I mean.....we've done that before for other people too....."
Glenn stammered himself quiet.
"Oh." That was the only thing I could think of to say, although I could
feel my face turning red, both from the cold and from embarrassment.
"Yeah, I guess I drink to much sometimes. I've got to start cutting back
on that....." I began, embarrassed and unsure how to respond.
"No, no..." Glen said, cutting in on my sentence. "Its not really like
that. I mean, we just want you to get home ok, and you know how traffic
is around here, and its not like it's a long way, and it's always nice
to get out of the bar and take a walk during a shift and besides
we.....well......we.". Glen stopped, and took a big gulp of his drink.
"Ya'll what?" My mind was still reeling over people following me home
from the bar to make sure I didn't get killed in the street.
"Well, we....uh....we all like you." That last part came out in a rush,
the words falling all on top of each other. Another gulp of beer.
"Well, I like ya'll too." I started, uncomfortably. I wasn't sure where
this was going, but I guessed they had been doing me a favor, even if I
hadn't know about it. "Although I'm not sure that everybody up there is
crazy about me," thinking about Danielle and our interaction earlier in
the night.
"I....uh." Glenn stammered out the two words and then stopped, and took
another big sip of whisky-enhanced beer. For the first time since we'd
been outside together, he turned and looked at me. Looking back, I was
shocked -- he was redder than I was, and had the most frightened
deer-in-the-headlights look I'd ever seen on a person.
"I...uh," he began again. "I like you a lot." As he said those final
words, he quickly looked away, concentrating on the decking of my patio.
I could hear --and see, in the cold weather -- his breath, coming fast
and furious. He stood, next to me, one hand holding a now half-empty
drink, the other hand tucked until a jacket armpit for warmth. His head
down, and tilted away from me as well, I couldn't see his facial
expressions. But I heard his breath sounds change, and suddenly sound
more violent, and he moved his free hand away from his jacket and up to
his face, rubbing at his eyes. It hit me, suddenly, that he was crying.